Antagonism, Affection, and Apathy
by FrillyPinkUmbrella
Summary: Any relationship is difficult, but it's rather hard to love someone and continue loving them when there's a war going on, and people are dying everywhere, and you have to decide who to trust your life with in the heat of a moment. (Originally on AO3)
1. Prologue: Trust

1.

"Jamie, bring the dessert in," Peter insists.

James lights up.

"Padfoot, why don't you bring it in? You're the -" James twists his tongue around to find the right accent, and flourishes his arm out elegantly, palm up. "_Patissier_."

Sirius swings up from his seat and bows slightly, grinning a bit too much, and saunters into the kitchen.

"Padfoot prepared dessert?" Remus says, incredulous, his bushy eyebrows arched.

"Yup."

"Chinese takeout for entree and Sirius's handmade cake for dessert, eh?"

"'S right."

Remus and Peter turn to stare at each other. James leans back in his chair and clasps his hands at the back of his head, amusedly observing the scene. Meanwhile, the mouth-watering smell of baked chocolate wafts around the room and reaches the table, and Remus actually stands up from his seat a bit.

"Fucking hell." His eyes fix devilishly on the cake sitting innocently on Sirius's tray.

Sirius sets it down on the table neatly, his pearly whites gleaming as he smirks at Remus. James tugs on his arm, getting him to sit down, and motions urgently for Remus to do the same.

"So, here's the thing," James says, once everyone's settled, when he catches Peter greedily reaching across for the cake knife. "Oi, not yet, Wormtail."

Peter slumps back in his seat.

"Can't it wait until after dessert, whatever this is?" says Remus impatiently.

"No."

James glances sideways at Sirius, whose expression is suddenly stoney, introspective, as he gives James a nod.

James clears his throat. "Hey, you guys, I really appreciate your enthusiasm for dessert, so I'm just going to cut straight to the point, yeah? There's someone in the Order who's spying for Voldemort. We don't know who, but they can't find out where Sirius and I live. Voldemort will do anything to finish us both once he knows we're here. At least that's what Dumbledore reckons."

A destabilizing, cold veil of air descends upon the table; the chocolate cake may as well freeze up.

Remus stares at James, and then at Sirius. Peter fidgets in his seat, a frown etched on his forehead.

"We need a Secret Keeper," Sirius clarifies.

Remus blows out a long breath, whistling hollowly.

"Oh," Peter squeaks out.

"Either one of you," James says. "Well, we were rather thinking Remus, since…"

"Since Peter can be a bit of a chicken sometimes, no offense." Sirius finishes.

"Oi!" Peter says half-heartedly.

"But also," James adds quickly, "they likely won't think we'd trust a werewolf."

"Don't be stupid, James, the whole world already knows by now that we don't give a shit about who's a werewolf and who's not," Sirius quips.

"But we wouldn't trust a werewolf with a secret as big as this, would we? I mean, you never know when they'll -"

"Slip up," Remus says quietly.

Everything goes silent.

James licks his lips awkwardly. "Don't be silly," he says into the table, wincing at this entire conversation. "We're not worried that you'll give us away. It's just a diversion -"

"Well, you should be." Remus's cuts in, flatly.

"Should be what?"

"Worried."

James looks up to see Remus's dead gaze, so honest it comes off as cold.

"Werewolves do slip up. They're not exactly human on the night of the full moon, are they? Secrets are for humans; no animal can keep a secret. I'd betray you in a heartbeat on the next full moon."

James looks up.

"We trust you, Moony," he says eagerly, not having registered a shred of what Remus just said, and catches Sirius nodding gravely out the corner of his eye.

Remus is unaffected. "And that's exactly why you'll take my word on this. I will betray you."

He leans back on his chair and crosses his arms, coolly excusing himself from the discussion. James drops his gaze once again onto his dirty plate, the idea of chocolate cake infinitely unappetizing.

"I guess it'll be you, then, Wormtail. Good lu - "

"Are you joking? No, it can't be Wormtail -" Sirius blurts out loudly.

Peter squirms.

"It can be him." James locks his eyes determinedly with Peter's big, scared-shitless ones. "Peter, you'll do this for us, won't you? Please?"

"I - uh - sure -" Peter splutters.

"No," Sirius says.

"Why not?" James rounds on Sirius. Why is he being so distrustful? They've been best friends - they've all been best friends - since fresh fucking first-year.

"Are you mental, James? Wormtail? Fucking Secret Keeper. Wormtail."

"Yes, Wormtail—Peter, and there's nothing wrong with that, and you shouldn't be so goddamn revolted by the idea," James says, watching Peter start to shake with nerves or rage or god-knows-what.

"Peter, did you say 'sure?' You'll do this?" James asks, wincing slightly when it comes out more like a demand.

Peter licks his lips, hesitates, then opens his mouth emptily. Sirius leers silently beside James. Remus pretends not to listen.

"Sure," Peter says finally, more firmly than James expected. It makes him happy.

He claps his hands together and forces a grin. "Great. That's settled then. Thank you, by the way," he booms, reaching across to ruffle Peter's hair.

Peter shrugs him off, adamantly not looking at Sirius.

"Now can we start on the dessert?"

They finish the cake in silence - or near-silence, as James constantly tries and fails to start an amiable conversation - and if it weren't for the sight of Remus's and Peter's plates being licked clean and speckless, James would have worried about them.

Who he is worried about, and angry more than worried about, is Sirius. He has no idea why he's been especially stubborn not to let Peter be Secret Keeper, but dare he say he's more offended than confused. Sirius and Peter are fucking Marauders; Sirius should know to trust him with anything. The thought that Sirius couldn't bring himself to do just that tonight is so mind-boggling and disgusting that it's shattered all his precious, affectionate Marauder memories into minuscule pieces, etching a thousand sharp cuts onto the inner walls of his mind.

This is what wartime feels like, James understands suddenly, and his eyes begin to sting.

Remus and Peter leave shortly after that, muttering "thank you"s, and pretending not to notice James's sudden change in mood. Sirius shows them to the door, and James hears them talk softly but he doesn't care to eavesdrop; most likely the usual stuff like "come back soon," which used to be a real invitation but would now only sound like empty politeness, or it could be "take care of James," which they know James would absolutely hate for them to say. James isn't a kid; he can take care of his own mental breakdowns.

Then Sirius returns to the living room, flying the dishes to the sink in one sweep of his wand. He doesn't follow them there, though - instead, he comes over to James and pats him on the shoulder.

"Hey." He ruffles his hair.

James ducks away.

"Why did you say that, Sirius?" He says, keeping his head bent over the now-cleared table, squeezing his eyes to ease his tears and pounding headache. "Why did you say you couldn't trust him?"

"I never said that," Sirius says quickly.

"You implied it. Heavily."

Sirius sighs.

"Well, I can't. I'm sorry, but it's the truth - maybe in future, I'll be able to. Just something about him - his behavior - his personality - he's never come off as much of a brave, loyal friend who'd do anything to keep a secret -"

"Well, why?" James's shoulders start to shake and he feels Sirius kneading them with his palms.

"Why? Well, he hasn't exactly proved to us that he can be trusted with something as big as this, has he?" Sirius drags out slowly, like he's turning his brain inside out to voice his opinion as delicately as possible.

"What are you talking about?"

"Well, for example - just an example, alright - the night of the Incident - "

James's heart constricts. He looks up sharply at Sirius. How dare he brings up the Incident - if he remembers correctly, it had been Sirius who had betrayed them, who had betrayed Remus's secret to fucking Severus on the night of the fucking Incident. He takes off from his seat.

"The incident, really? Really, Sirius?"

He jams a pointed finger into Sirius's chest, seething, and settles his voice down low and quiet.

"Wow. I love how you just brought up the Incident here, right at this moment, blaming Peter and talking about loyalty; really, out of all things, the Incident, you've really gone out of your mind, Padfoot,"

His words sting Sirius: his eyes close half-way like the sight of an angry James is literally hurting him, his jaw tightening.

"I didn't mean it like that -" Sirius starts, but James is already making his way blindly up the stairs.

He stumbles on a step and bangs his knee, and it doesn't hurt.

James is trapped inside a narrow, dark brick alleyway - rather, the space around him is filled up with black fog. It could be smoke, if not for the absence of smell.

He can't rely on his smell, or his sight for that matter, and he can't hear anything - except - no, that's just the wind.

He calls out the first thing that comes to mind.

"Sirius?"

His voice comes out foreign, distant, like he's shouting at himself from a mile away. Like he's shouting into a pitch-dark void, which he is. He gulps down a panicked sob, yells again.

"Sirius!"

He stumbles around, arms stretched out in front of him, and he can't even make out his hands it's so dark. He feels pain in his eyes and realizes he's been squinting them too hard. His thigh brushes against something sharp, forcing a gasp out of him.

"Sirius!"

"James?"

He shoots up from his pillow, catches his head in his hands and hunches over. He brings his knees up and closer to himself, making sure that his thigh isn't hurt. He's breathing a bit too hard. His eyes are working again, and his sight adjusts its focus onto his navy-blue jeans, the hem of his khaki t-shirt, the white sheets beneath him.

"James?" Sirius's voice is much closer now.

A pair of arms wrap firmly around his head. His face presses into the material of Sirius's sweatshirt - James's sweatshirt, since it was his in the first place - it smells like three-year-old-James's teddy bear he used to sleep with on lonely nights. A little stale and on the brink of sour, but funnily enough, perfectly snug. It smells like himself and it slows down his breathing considerably.

"James," Sirius mutters into his ear. As if sensing that James is being comforted by his sweatshirt, he locks his face in closer, which gets James' nose crumpled up. Tears steadily wet the cotton, sniffles muffling against it.

"James."

Sirius gently pushes him back so that James is lying on his back again, and it's then that he finally looks up at Sirius. His expression is one of concern and sadness and utter love, so much love that James struggles to remember what it was that they had been arguing over just a second before he fell dead asleep on the bed. After a few, sluggish moments of contemplation, he remembers that it had been on the matter of Peter's being Secret Keeper, and it feels so totally insignificant that he just has to tell Sirius that. So he does.

Sirius smiles somewhat sadly. "People change in critical moments. Maybe Peter will, too, now that he's got the responsibility."

James shakes his head.

"Uh-huh. But I don't want to talk about Peter at this moment."

"So, you want to talk about - what? How amazing I look in this sweatshirt?"

"Arsehole," James says, swatting at him casually. His heart warms at how Sirius is not showing any signs whatsoever of bringing up the nightmare that James so evidently just had.

"On a scale of one to ten, one being the worst and ten being godly, how do you rate this look?"

Sirius cranes back a bit, unlocking his arms from around James to give him a better view, but James immediately makes a grab for his arms and promptly wraps them around himself again. Sirius laughs, obliges, and combs his fingers through James's hair just to get them stuck, as always. It's soothing, anyway.

"Zero, maybe. It's not even your sweatshirt to begin with."

"It's as good as mine—finders, keepers."

"And where exactly did you find it?"

"It was lying around neglected in the laundry room for days, Prongs, honestly."

Sirius's voice slurs drowsily, and his eyelids close all the way, and James begins his favorite private game of tracing each long, dark eye-lash with his fingertip. Even though Sirius is practically lying on top of him, he can't bother to wake him up. The smell of his shampoo is putting him to sleep himself.

At least, if he has another bad dream, he'll wake up to Sirius's entire weight literally stacked onto him. But then again, he doesn't think he'll dream this time around.

For the first time in weeks, James is gently guided into consciousness by natural sunlight and chirping birds and Sirius's motionless form right beside him, mouth agape with a sloppy arm slung across James's chest—not a blaring alarm.

Voldemort seems to be going through a little slump of his own, presently—a welcome slump, James must say, as the number of panicky emergency Order meetings has been gradually decreasing the past month.

James just sort of lies there and gazes dreamily at his boyfriend's face. He feels blessed just to be staying there, lost in time, knowing that when Sirius wakes up - and at his own comfortable timing, at that - the first thing he'll see is James and the first thing that'll come to his mind is James, and not the stupid Order.

Sirius is finally fully awake around midday. They proceed to have lazy sex in bed, after which they get out of bed together, take a lukewarm shower together, and make pancakes together.

It's only way later when they've eaten stacks of pancakes and are already halfway into a trashy 'superhero' movie when James brings it up absent-mindedly.

"You know, if Peter decides to give us away anyway, we can always fight him off."

Sirius turns his head toward him, looking mildly confused.

"You mean Voldemort? You mean we can always fight Voldemort off?"

"Sure, why not?"

"'Why not' - Why not. You're ridiculous, you know, you really are, Prongs."

"What's so ridiculous about it?" James grins, shoves an elbow into his rib. "Come on, we've always excelled in Defense, Dumbledore's always been keeping an eye on us - recruited us into the Order earlier than anyone else in the grade, remember? Not even Moony lined up to us."

Sirius just sort of laughs, and shakes his head, like it's the biggest joke of the year. James can kind of see it too; how absurd it must have sounded. Voldemort isn't some old boggart or troll, and even James knows he's far more dangerous than the random obstacle in Defense Against the Dark Arts NEWTs.

So they share in on the joke; they laugh and laugh, they roll around on the cramped couch, drowning out whatever silly shooting and bombing noises that blast out of the movie, and James decides it's a good time to forget about the war for a moment.

The doorbell rings.

James' eyes close automatically. Fuck, not another casualty.

Unlike everything else, casualty reports are not given out via owl or floo because of their "delicate nature" or some shit. They actually hand-pick an Order member each time who's specifically suited for the job—James doesn't know exactly what kind of person is qualified as specifically suited to go around everyone's homes, pulling on a solemn face and announcing in a dark voice, sorry, someone-or-other just died. But it had been Barty Crouch for the Fabian brothers' death, McGonagall for Marlene McKinnons'… he hasn't been keeping track of the rest.

The next time he opens his eyes, Sirius is gone - he can hear a conversation going on, but only Sirius's rather blunt voice drifts its way into the living room, almost like he's talking on the floo.

"No, he's fine…"

"Yeah."

"Sure."

"Right, I'll see you."

Soon, Sirius walks back in and slumps back onto his spot on the couch.

"Who was it?" James prompts.

"Evans."

"Lily?"

Sirius nods carelessly, fixing his stare on the TV. "Yes, Jamie, Lily."

"Well, what did she want?"

"You," Sirius says sourly.

James raises his eyebrows.

"She wanted to see you," Sirius clarifies, sighing a bit. "Said she heard about us having a - ah, what was it - a 'fight.' She thought you'd be alone here, for whatever reason - in everyone's imagination it's always me who leaves you, not the other way around…"

"She thought you'd left me?"

"Yes, Prongs. Keep up."

"But why would she want to see me?"

"God knows why, Jamie, but don't you think it's time we started paying attention to the movie again?" Sirius is keeps staring blankly at the TV, looking as if he'd find almost anything more interesting than what's going on on-screen.

Boom.

"So tell me - who's that that just got shot?"


	2. Concealment

2.

The next day isn't so fortunate. James's first thought of the day is ouch, because some bird-like creature is slapping its wings relentlessly on his face. He dares himself to open his eyes and barely recognizes that it's his own owl, Whistles, before snapping his eyes shut at the next menacing flap.

After a moment of struggling, moaning, and flailing around, he manages to fling the animal out of the way and run out of the room, flies downstairs and seethes at the sight of Sirius already primly dressed and switching off the stove with a flick of his wand.

Sirius turns around and smirks at James.

"Well, who do we have here? A grumpy, dimwitted early-morning James, the subject of caution for everyone in town."

James grunts, reaching a hand towards his hair and messes it up, yawning despite himself.

The owl, having followed James, passes by right beside his head and swoops toward Sirius, twitting above his head as he shoots owl candy into the air.

"Don't do that, she's overweight already."

Sirius changes the subject. "So, you got the message?"

Whistles lands beady-eyed on his shoulder, beaks snapping and throat bobbing in quick succession, and sticks out a twiggy leg.

"What mes- oh."

Sirius takes the near-invisible little card attached onto Whistles' leg, and waves it in James's face, wiggling his eyebrows stupidly. Whistles unfurls her wings once and collapses them in what looks to be a mocking gesture.

"Shut up," James says before Sirius can say anything, and snatches the message from his fingers.

Alert: Order of the Phoenix Meeting

Today, 20th October, 7:30 AM

James looks up. "What time is it now?"

"Quarter to seven."

James grunts for the second time that morning, shuffles to his seat at the kitchen table, places his head on the surface and falls half asleep.

Even though Sirius ends up sharing his french toast with James - albeit grudgingly - they're still two of the last people to get there. To be fair, they're not even late - two minutes early, in fact, and yet everyone already seated around the long mahogany table of the Room of Requirement turns around to look at them in a not-so-pleasant way.

"Sorry we delayed everyone," James says sarcastically before he catches sight of Dumbledore twinkling his eyes at him.

"Professor Dumbledore!" James starts. "Sorry - I mean - you know, well, I didn't mean the meeting was delayed because of -" James doesn't quite know what he's spluttering about. Sirius sniggering beside him and pecking his flushed cheek isn't helping, either. Everyone around them laugh; even Minerva fucking McGonagall is having a hard time containing a smile.

Dumbledore comes to the rescue; raises his hand to halt James.

"Please, James, just Albus," he chortles. "Thank you for appearing on time. Please, take a seat, the both of you."

James's face is still a little hot when the meeting begins.

"I apologize for the urgent call - I do hope you have all enjoyed the past few days off work to the best of your abilities. I'm afraid I do not have much information to share this morning. I have neither good nor bad news, with the exception that the Minister is continuing to send me threatening messages via his Patronus. I am nearly convinced by now that he is being controlled; most likely under the Imperius."

Everyone looks around, trying to appear unaffected but most of them failing to hide their scandalized feelings. They woke up this early for - what? For nothing? 'Not much to share?'

Dumbledore continues. "I merely called for you all to appear today because we must do something crucial to protect two of our valued members who are sitting at this table with us. James Potter and Sirius Black have been marked as red-class targets by the Death Eaters and Voldemort himself. To ensure their safety, the two have agreed they must start relying on a Secret Keeper, with my insistence. Accordingly, they have already secured one for themselves. I will not name them here as it may compromise the safety of all involved. If none of you object, I will now begin the process of casting Obliviate on each and every one of you with the exception of these two young men over here -" he waves a hand in James and Sirius's direction - "and of course, the Secret Keeper, to the extent that you no longer know the location in which the two reside in if you do happen to know at this moment. You will also forget that they have a Secret Keeper."

For the entire time, Dumbledore's tone does not waver from one-hundred-percent technical, it almost comes off as detached.

Everyone's looking around uneasily, but most of all they're looking at James and Sirius. James sees it all in their wide-open eyes - fear, disbelief, sympathy. He does a little shrug whenever his eyes meets theirs. The attention is getting kind of annoying, really. Sure, he does love attention, but this is the wrong kind, and if it weren't for Sirius's arm around his middle he would have excused himself and gone home. For the entire time, he avoids looking at Peter; he's scared of what's written on his face. Knowing Peter, he might already be giving himself away.

Dumbledore pulls James and Sirius aside before proceeding to Nox the floating candles out. He also casts Muffliato to make sure no one will be able to guess the Secret Keeper by eavesdropping. In a blink of a second, the room is both pitch-dark and dead-silent.

"Thank you," Dumbledore says less than a second later. The candles come back alive.

The meeting is adjourned shortly after, and James and Sirius are just making their way towards the secret exit along with everyone else when Dumbledore stops them, laying a hand on each of their shoulders.

"James, Sirius. Please stay behind. I wish to talk to you."

"Yes, sir."

Dumbledore raises a thin eyebrow.

"I mean, yes, Albus."

Sirius looks quizzically at James; James shrugs back.

Dumbledore doesn't sit down, nor does he ask the two of them to.

"Forgive me for wondering, how are you enjoying your post-Hogwarts lives so far?"

"Perfectly well, thank you," Sirius answers flatly, obviously anxious to get to the point.

"Good, good," Dumbledore doesn't seem to care much about their post-Hogwarts lives, either. He doesn't say anything else until the door closes behind the last Order member to follow out.

"There is something, I am afraid," He starts abruptly, "that I must ask from the both of you. I understand that the past few weeks have been especially demanding for you, but it will only become more so after today, and I am forced to implore you that this will not discourage you by any means. We are discussing about your own protection; the highest degree of magical protection, in fact."

James and Sirius nod. How bad can this be?

"You must begin learning to close your minds."

James looks at him, not understanding.

Sirius starts. "Are you talking about -"

"Occlumency, yes. Extremely difficult, deceivingly subtle bit of magic, Occlumency is. But I have no doubt that the two of you will master it thoroughly over the course of the next few weeks. And you must do this, soon. You must not let Voldemort, nor any of his allies, discover that they can use either of you to effectively lure the other into a trap, so that the both of you may find yourselves in difficult situations. I have known Voldemort since he had been a first-year at Hogwarts, and dare I say that I am more than sufficiently aware of how he likes to follow through with his best tactics." Dumbledore's tone is straightforward, deadpan, but his eyes bore at them with a profound something close to fieriness.

James's mouth opens and closes. Sirius seems to be in a similar turmoil. At the very least, they find the audacity in themselves to nod.

Dumbledore smiles sadly. "He abuses love to weaken his enemies."

"So? What do you think about it?" James tries, once they're back in Hogsmeade, on a stop at The Three Broomsticks.

"I think it's pretty cool. I've always wanted to learn it. Legilimency as well, actually, but only after mastering Occlumency, obviously," Sirius says. "You?"

"Yeah. So do I, I think."

"You think?"

"I mean - " James licks his lips. "It's cool - it's just - what the hell did he mean about our having to not let it 'show' in public?" It's been bothering him ever since their chat with Dumbledore. "Didn't he say something like - we should 'hide that which should not be seen by our enemies?' How do you translate that into everyday speech?"

"It's highly open to interpretation," Sirius says, looking a little uncertain himself. "I take it to mean that we can't fool around with each other in public anymore."

"Fool around - you mean, less PDA?"

Sirius spits out a laugh. "No PDA."

James looks down at his butterbeer, frowning. "Oh."

"We've got to hide what we are to each other. We're just friends- acquaintances - people who went to school together. We don't live together anymore; we just happen to work for the same organization - for Dumbledore."

They drink in silence. Sirius seems lost in thought, and James is, too, but only for a moment. The chatter surrounding them is strangely peaceful and even somewhat mellow - it's encouraging to forget entirely that there's stuff going on out there, big stuff, war stuff. James sort of soaks in the ambience then, closing his eyes, letting the autumn daylight spark through the window and through his eyelids to glow in a soothing shade of red.

When he reluctantly opens them again, Sirius is staring at him.

"Sirius?"

His expression is intense, eyes gleaming bright even amidst the dashing sunlight; almost hungry. He seems a little out of it, as if day-dreaming, only he's day-dreaming especially fiercely about something that involves James -

"I want to kiss you." His voice is quiet, confiding.

James blinks. It's strange to hear that; Sirius has never said anything like it aloud. It's never, "I want to kiss you," he just kisses James whenever he wants to. James almost says in surprise, "oh - well then, go on -" before he remembers why the hell Sirius said it in the first place. He's not asking for permission, he's not saying it because he wants to kiss him - but because he can't. He can't kiss him right then and there just like they've been used to doing all the freaking time, whether it be over just this exact round table by the windowsill at the Three Broomsticks, or by the hills overlooking the Shrieking Shack, or tip-toeing on the steps of any of the moving staircases in the castle - it's been part of their second nature, their shared nature, and suddenly, all of it is forbidden. It's all uncomfortable and weirdly suffocating, like the thought alone is enough to make James struggle slightly for air.

He sees Sirius's slim wrist lying idly next to his near-empty glass. James's fingers prickle with the natural urge of just going for it, taking it in his hand, and he has to hypothetically shake himself out of it. He quickly dumps a couple of loose sickles on the table and reaches for Sirius's shoulder instead. In a blink, they're back at their driveway, racing each other to the front door.

"This is weird, Sirius," James wonders aloud while his body lights up at the long-denied contact, moaning despite himself. Sirius only hums in response as he squeezes his arse repeatedly, continuing to snog the daylights out of him.

"I mean, this is wrong," James blabbers in between large gasps. "We shouldn't have to run all the way home just for this -"

"Shh," Sirius says suddenly. His groping stops as his hands travel up to catch the sides of James's head. "Shh," he says again and leans in to kiss his forehead softly. "I know. But at least we still get to live together, right? We still get to be together."

They start again at that, but much slower. James loses himself in it, each moment blurring and slurring into the other until he can't keep track of exactly where on Sirius's body his hands are traveling, where he's being touched himself. He can only recognize that it's pleasurable and that everything is back to nice and safe and warm again, even if it's temporary.

They don't go any further than a little making out. They move hand-in-hand and dreamlike toward their bedroom and curl around each other on their grateful bed to sleep it all away.

Occlumency is being rather nasty to the both of them.

Soon, however, they realize that it's not the art of closing your mind in itself that's tricky - it's their state of mind that's the problem most of the time: it's what they've been doing right before, how they're feeling at the moment, how at peace they are.

For example, there was that one time when they were practicing right after a hot bath and Sirius was still half-dressed - "I need to cool off a little," he'd justified himself - and distracted James to no end. His attention kept on roaming toward Sirius's naked top half: the smooth, shallow ebbs and flows of his chest muscles, his abs, his dark brown nipples igniting James's dirty imagination. That's when Sirius decided to play that nasty trick and fried James's brains inside out with the mind-invading curse before pulling out and taking the mickey out of him. James had scowled and left the room immediately, had sworn that he wouldn't continue unless Sirius found the decency in himself to dress.

Then, just today, they'd had sex in the afternoon and had decided to start practicing immediately afterwards. James had still been basking in the afterglow, and Sirius had absolutely no fucking right to laugh when James had stumbled backwards, his befuddled mind having failed to meet Sirius's Legilimens curse head-on. It was just fucking unfair; it was cruel. It had been James's turn to be bound against the armchair and blindfolded and pushed deep into subspace. So that was when James naturally got irritated and struck the curse right back at Sirius, who had still been laughing - and he'd caught a glimpse of that particular night when Sirius had run away from his parents. His father beating him in the dining room, right in front of a terrified Regulus, spitting his head off and smacking his belt everywhere, on the walls, on the table, on Sirius. His mother was worse, she was absolutely wicked; shrieking out derogation in all its pure forms, some that James doesn't want to even repeat in his head, others so old-fashioned that didn't even make sense to him, and yet others that were about James himself. James's Legilimens curse had been flown off, then, and he'd stumbled a few steps backward and drove his hip into the sharp edge of a desk. Sirius was already gone, the ear-shattering bang of the door still ricocheting around the bedroom as James struggled to get up, rubbing at his hip -

Even as he'd screamed after his disapparating figure, he knew he'd made a horrible mistake.

"Sirius," James calls into his mirror for the umpteenth time that day.

"Sirius, please, I'm sorry, please forgive me -"

The clock strikes midnight; it had been Sirius who'd selected that one out of an antique shop, claimed that it had been owned by a powerful wizard whose name James hasn't cared to remember.

"I'll do anything, Sirius, come home, you must be hungry -"

That freaky old broker didn't know what he was talking about! He thought it'd been a Muggle's possession, for honesty's sake… Sirius had guffawed brashly, lifting the clock to the wall of their living room.

"I'll cook you up dinner, alright? What was it the one you liked, pasta alfredo? Yeah, I'll cook you up some of that right now, if you want, and I can put in that parma ham in - remember we bought that expensive one the other day?"

It strikes? James had asked, bewildered. Every hour, Sirius had said happily. How the fuck are we supposed to sleep? Sirius had scowled, then. I got us the ancient clock owned by the one and only most influential wizard of the past millennium and you want to know how you're supposed to sleep?

"You can obliviate me if you want! I'll forget what I saw, I'm willing to! If it's so sensitive to you -"

"Sensitive?"

James jumps. It's the first time Sirius has responded that day - the first time he's even given any sign of having listened to his mirror, despite the fact that it's practically impossible not to listen to it, not even if you shatter it.

"Sirius! Hey, Sirius, I'm going to the kitchen now -" he runs into the kitchen. "I'll prepare the pasta, alright? See, I'm opening the fridge now -"

James flips his mirror around and lets it reflect the inside of the fridge, takes the package of pasta strings in his hand and waves it dramatically.

"It's not fucking sensitive."

Sirius's angry, I-don't-take-your-bullshit voice from behind him makes him yelp. He spins around and sees Sirius standing there, right over the threshold to the kitchen.

"Oh, well, hi there," James giggles in relief. Suddenly self-conscious, he jams his mirror into his back-pocket and slams the fridge door shut. "I see you've come back."

Sirius ignores that, just sort of flashes pure fury out of his eyes. James winces.

"Right, well, I didn't mean it was necessarily sensitive to you -"

"You're damn right. It wasn't sensitive to me; it was my goddamn privacy that you were invading -"

"Hey," James says, pointedly but trying to keep it playful. "You invade my privacy all the time, you take advantage of my occupied mind all the time during practice! I don't get pissed from that -"

"I wasn't pissed, you obsessive motherfucker, I only wanted to take a fucking breather and you didn't want to respect that -"

"You wanted a 'breather?'" James giggles like a girl - he'd thought Sirius had left him for good - if not for good, then for a long time. And Sirius had merely been taking a 'breather.'

"Next time you're taking a breather, just tell me, alright? Tell me, 'hey, James, you're invading my privacy so I'm going to go take a breather -'"

Sirius looks about this close from hitting him, so James rushes toward him while he still can, unnerving him with a kiss.

"Don't you dare…" Sirius tries to escape.

James hugs him tight and kisses him harder, swaying him a bit, left to right, right to left. He brings a hand up to his hair, teasing the long, smooth strands and whispering nothings into his neck. He can't stop laughing; it's so good to have him back, so good to smell him again.

By the time James brings in the steaming bowl of pasta to the living room, Sirius is back to normal.


	3. Distance

3.

The next time the Marauders meet up, they can't do it at James and Sirius's house. Remus isn't technically supposed to know where they live, even though James could bet his own life that it wouldn't be much of a problem. Still, he wouldn't want him to get into serious trouble just because he knows, and people find out that he knows, and somehow he's made a target by some Death Eater. As much as James hates it, the fewer people who know, the better.

"Why couldn't it be the Three Broomsticks?" Peter whines, showing blatant disgust as he sets his drink down for good.

"Change of scenery," Sirius says simply. James knows that he'd insisted on The Hog's Head solely because he knew it'd upset Peter.

Remus rolls his eyes, looks out the grimy window at the deserted back alley of Hogsmeade.

"So, _Re-_mus," Sirius sing-songs. "Say, how are you enjoying your new mission?

Sirius has been going on about it the whole week, ever since he and James found out that Remus had been given a mission earlier than any of the other Marauders. _What did the fucking werewolf do that was so special, other than howl around crazily every month like a girl dealing with cramps?_

_Be nice, _James had said, even though he had rather been on the prickly edge himself. _We've just got to prove ourselves - we'll master Occlumency in a heartbeat and Dumbledore will be sending us off on our own mission soon enough, you'll see._

Remus shrugs a little too nonchalantly. It's a shrug he's done a hundred times before, like when he was being interrogated about where he'd been hiding his stash of Honeydukes candy. _I've already had them all - there's none left!_

"It's a little dull, to be honest," Remus says in a tone that's a little _too_ dull as he keenly observes his glass of Butterbeer. "Just what you'd expect - gathering information, interviewing victims, and the like."

Remus shrugs and looks out the window again, obviously uncomfortable. Before James can steer the topic away, however, Sirius pushes even further, clearly reveling in the sheer awkwardness of the conversation. He leans in.

"Interviewing _who?_ Come on, Remus, we won't tell. Who did you interview last and what did they say?"

"Yeah, what did they _say?_" Peter pipes in, excited to be in on a secret.

Remus clears his throat. "Hey, listen, I've got to -" he's already pushing his chair back. It screeches against the wood and almost startles James's feet into standing up as well.

"Moony -" he raises a hand helplessly.

"Not so fast," Sirius drawls. "Come on, this is fun tea-spilling time. Do you not trust us? Or do you have to run to your mysterious lovely _mission _again?"

"It really is none of your business," Remus snarls as he goes out the door. "I'll see you around."

The ancient doorbell clangs after his absence, echoing around the nearly empty pub. The barman by the counter lifts his face to look at them. The three of them sit silently for a few moments.

James is absolutely _seething _inside. He doesn't _dare _look at Sirius, he doesn't think he can stomach it - at least until his next outrageous remark.

"Speaking of trust -" Sirius begins. "You better not give us away, Wormy, or we'll have your head."

Peter whimpers in his seat.

In a sudden spike of rage, James's hand slams on the table. His butterbeer splashes onto his robes, onto Sirius's robes.

"What the fuck is your_ problem? _You scare Remus away, and now you're threatening Peter? Exactly what do you hope to accomplish by harassing your best friends?"

"Best friend, is it, that won't tell us what his fucking _job _is? I mean, come on, when has 'confidentiality' ever meant anything to us?" Sirius challenges, calmly ignoring James's hand gripping onto his collar. "And then here's Peter, who can't keep from squeaking like a chicken merely at the _mention_ of -"

Peter squeaks.

"_Shut your mouth!_" James gives Sirius's collar a violent shake, frantically looking around. There's that barman again, whose interest in the conversation is obvious beneath the facade of indifference, the ancient wizard in the corner wearing a heavy cloak right by the fire, the lady in the shabby robes by the bar.

In the silence, though, James thinks he hears something. Something - _swishing, _something - _someone - _outside the door.

_Swish._

_Click._

_Ding, _the door chime rings once again.

Two figures step in.

And that's it, there they are: Crisp and freshly groomed - newbie Death Eaters in real life, complete with carefully ironed black robes that nearly stretch toward the dusty floor and those somewhat artistic metal masks attached to their heads with menacing slits for air. Raising their wands in mechanical unison - at _them._

"Expelliarmus," Sirius whispers.

Nothing happens.

More accurately, nothing happens save for Peter jumping in his seat. Both their wands still pointed firmly in the trio's direction, the Death Eaters hesitate, twitching their necks to look at each other. James imagines them raising their eyebrows and smirking or something, and decides to throw a sideways frown at Sirius.

Sirius seems to be perfectly unperturbed, while it's Peter who's fidgeting restlessly in his seat, cowering his face so low it's almost under the table.

Someone makes a noise from the bar. James looks - It's the barman setting down the dirty rag cloth and the glass he's been supposedly cleaning - a soft _thump _on dry wood_._

"You are not welcome here." His voice is ragged and disused and eerily disquieting.

James comes to himself.

"That's right," he perks up. Not because he actually thinks the Death Eaters will leave the pub at that, of course - it's simply for show. It's just James being James, giddy to appear like he knows what the hell he's doing. "You're not welcome here."

A split moment before the curses hit, he manages to produce an adequate _Protego_ shield covering all three of them. Sirius breaks out of it almost instantly, though, shuffling toward the Death Eaters and initiating a two-against-one duel with a showy _bang_. James takes the sliver of bought time to reach across to Peter.

"Peter," he says urgently, pulling on his arm to drag him father away from the scene. "You should probably leave."

"I c-can't, J-James," Peter gasps. He's absolutely fucking _terrified - _his eyes are rounder than James has ever seen them, they're whiter, shinier, fucking fragile. "I c-can't." He holds out both of his shaking hands, palms-up. Both of his _empty_ palms.

"What? Are you fucking - did you fucking _forget _your wand, Wormtail?"

James can rip out his hair. Peter's or his own hair, he doesn't care - he wasn't expecting Peter to be so blindingly _stupid._

Meanwhile, the blasting noises at the doorway is becoming extremely disturbing. There's shouting going on by now - not just curses and jinxes but actual yelps of pain, _human_ noises - James can't allow himself to look just yet.

"I d-didn't, James," Peter is nearly sobbing. "I d-didn't forget, it's S-Sirius -"

James blinks.

_Sirius -_

Blink.

Peter's wand -

_Expelliarmus._

_Sirius disarmed Wormtail._

James looks, then. He looks at the scene and sees Sirius lashing around mindlessly with his wand, throwing one of the aspiring Death Eaters onto the table the Marauders had just been sitting at and splinching the other's knee ruthlessly. James looks as they both cower back, hands flying up stupidly to their masks to keep them attached. James looks as Sirius smirks casually at them, snarls some insulting remark that he does't quite catch.

James looks at him and he's infuriated.

He quickly scans the vicinity and finds a nearly-hidden back door - shoving Peter in the general direction, throwing a careless "_go outside,_" joining in the duel - no, _finishing _the duel. This has to fucking _end, _he has to have a chat with Sirius right fucking _now._

The mask slips off one of the Death Eater's faces - James recognizes him vaguely from the bottom of the Prophet's _Wanted_ section, among the rows of faces titled, 'least threatening'.

It doesn't take long after that for the both of them to call it a day. The one with the mask still hanging on decides to zip one more curse - may have been the _Avada Kedavra_, but then many curses are green - toward Sirius, but James deflects it first, gulping down the annoying coil of fear that overcame him for a split second.

"Hey, I could have caught that," Sirius says flippantly, although heaving a little. He winks at James.

The Death Eaters disapparate with a crack, dust swirling upward after them.

James rounds on Sirius. "What the fuck is your problem?"

Sirius quirks an eyebrow. "What the fuck is _your _problem? And where the fuck is Wormtail?" He cranes his head to peer behind James.

"You actually _disarmed _him, you fucking - you're disgusting! You're absolutely _disgusting!_"

Tears spring up in his eyes. Dust and wooden remnants attack them, making him blink painfully and spilling the liquid out unapologetically.

"James," Sirius is all of a sudden a foot away from him, hand coming up to his shoulder. He apparently thinks twice about it, because he drops his hand before it even touches, glancing around and licking his lips.

"Don't touch me," James says belatedly. "Tell me why you did that. Tell me the fucking _truth, _Sirius, I dare you to, or we're over."

The effects of those last two words on Sirius are self-evident. His face falls apart in an instant, rendered speechless.

"I swear, if I decide I can't trust you anymore, _we're over_." James repeats, just for the sake of it. Just in case it didn't get across to Sirius the first time, although it's pretty obvious it did.

"James, come on, we can't talk about it in _here," _Sirius says quietly. Indeed, it's rather quiet in there - the three people in the pub must be strangers to each other. Plus, they're all quite introverted. In James's periphery, scraps of wood and glass can be seen drifting back into place by the barman's wordless incantations.

"Just - why don't you go give Peter back his wand and - fucking _apologize_ to him if you have even a scrap of dignity left in you?"

The entire evening is tense after they get back home - first of all, James apparently seems to have had way too much butterbeer for his own good. The enormous daytime intake of sugary alcohol and the succeeding surge of adrenaline when the Death Eaters decided to stop by forces him into the bathroom a total of three times. He has to hold back his own hair and pick at the places that escapes his fingers and got sprayed by vomit. He takes two showers - first because of all that barf down his robes and a second time because of the cold sweat. He isn't expecting Sirius to come in all concerned for him, not even when he slips and bangs his arse on the wet floor which he's sure Sirius heard, but the fact that he doesn't come in to check on him is an annoying reminder of everything that happened that day.

Sirius comes out of the kitchen carrying two hot mugs of tea.

James takes a seat, plops his elbows against the table, and sinks his chin into his hands. He's staring into the air when a mug lands in its place.

"Drink. You'll feel better."

James ignores him.

"James, we need to talk."

"_I _don't need to talk. It's _you _who has some explaining to do at the very least," James blurts in a sudden burst of anger.

"Right, yeah. So -" Sirius clears his throat. "I just wanted to - it was a _challenge, _alright. I wanted to see if Peter could play his part if he was really pushed to, for once. It's always us and Moony who's covering for him, and he never got his chance to do anything to prove himself, and I thought that maybe that's why he always appears like such a coward, you know? That's why I just… felt like disarming him today, to see how he'd react, if he'd come to himself and do his part for once."

James stays silent for a long time. He doesn't know what to think. He hates it but he's forced admit that what Sirius is saying has some credibility to it. It's just that Sirius decided to disarm Peter at the particular moment when their lives were practically in danger and _anything_ could have happened - and disarming an ally could have been the worst, most irreversible decision ever made by a Marauder.

Also, he can't think when Sirius is looking at him like that. That face he's making - a disturbing balance of adamant and unsure - it makes James want to kick him in the groin and run away at the same time. This combined with the thought of Peter sends him crashing into a headache.

"James?" Sirius's tentative, slightly desperate voice coming from rather far away. "Look, I apologized to him -"

"I don't know, Sirius," James says, finally. "One of us could have _died _today. This isn't a game. It's not one of those dares we used to do in school. This is _war, _Sirius, and you've got to realize that."

Sirius opens his mouth to say something, so James cuts him off.

"I'm going to bed."

"You're - what? Hey, but it's still, like, _nine o'clock!_"

James is already heading up the stairs.

"Wait, James! What about your _tea?_"

James feels confused and exhausted, and the easiest way to show it is to lay sprawled across the entire bed, taking up Sirius's space just for the hell of it.

Which is probably why Sirius isn't there lying beside him when he wakes up in the middle of the night, gasping, having forgotten to clear his mind before bed as per Dumbledore's instructions. Not completely recalling the contents of his dream/nightmare, but knowing that it was frightening the fuck out of him, he can only shuffle downstairs half-consciously in his pajamas.

His wandlight finds Sirius asleep on the couch, cocooned up in a single layer of blanket he presumably took from the spare bedroom. There's still the mug of tea on the table. James reaches for it when he jumps at the temperature. Sirius must have cast an endless heating charm, he concludes, just in case James was going to get up in the dead of night and look for a drink to calm himself down. Suddenly, everything is insignificant except for the pure instinct to rush toward Sirius and climb into his arms, to wake him up and make a dumb joke and start things over from scratch.

Of course, it's not that easy. Things have been going too far lately, farther and farther, and making up with each other every night in bed - or on the couch - is surely not going to keep fixing the real issue. Even James is coming to understand that. He slowly lets go of the irrational desire to curl up beside Sirius, and instead goes to sit on the very edge of the couch, by Sirius's feet.

It's getting colder these days. A single blanket is not nearly enough, so he summons two more, draping one over Sirius and one around himself. He lights the fireplace and for the rest of the night he just sort of stares at it: the flickering of the dark red flames, the easiness with which they flash, the absolute consistency of it all. He sits still with his knees hugged close and eyes going dry as he steadily drifts toward daybreak. The crackling of the fire tease in and out of the gentle sounds of Sirius's breathing, lulling James back into sleep, when -

Sirius's breaths suddenly come out sharp, shallow, and almost painful. James bucks forward unsuspectingly as Sirius's foot kicks him hard in the back, nearly sending his mug flying from his hands.

James immediately works out that it's the same thing that happened to himself just a few hours ago. The natural urge is to shake his shoulders until he opens his eyes, to snake his arms around him and reassure him until he finally calms down. Instead, though, he decides with bumping his knee against Sirius's.

Sirius comes to with a sharp gasp. He breathes heavily in silence for a while. It's light enough to see his face - his eyes find James's after a moment and he shows an awkward grin.

"Morning, Jamie."

These days, they're wary every time they go out of the house. They can't even shop for groceries without keeping a keen eye on their surroundings. They don't hold hands; most of the time James can't bring himself to look at Sirius because doing so would want to reach for his hand. Most of the time, in fact, they don't even talk in public.

_This is why I'm so upset, _James reasons, when he catches Sirius winking at the muggle cashier lady. Her mouth is slightly open, her eyes fixed on Sirius's admittedly above-average face. James is immediately crazy with hatred - directed at those thin lips (James's lips are fuller), the heavy mascara (James always thought make-up was ridiculous), the green, basic-looking store uniform (James has robes in _emerald_).

By the time he comes to himself, Sirius is already moving onto the next aisle. Hurrying to catch up, he grabs everything along the way that he thinks they may need for the next week to jam into the cart. He's not intent on coming back here to shop again anytime soon, after all.

James senses someone staring. This time, it's an old man with a huge gray beard, looking skeptical. James shrugs at the man, then stares straight ahead at Sirius to see his point. Yeah, it must be positively unfathomable to see a young man dragging a shopping cart behind him while another nearly jogs to catch up with him, throwing in groceries almost at random - and all of this in silence. The colorless, cheap supermarket lights bounce off of Sirius's undisturbed hair, mocking the old man, mocking James, mocking everything.

The minute they step outside of the market, Sirius turns into a dog. James immediately follows up with an obliviate charm on every passerby - it's turned into an unspoken routine by now. Because at least with Padfoot, James can openly be affectionate. They're no longer strangers this way - well, no one can act like a stranger to a _dog _anyway_._

They trod unhurriedly to their neighborhood park for a bit of fresh air. Well, James can't exactly rush with the load of magically shrunken groceries weighing his pockets down. Sometimes he has to remind Padfoot this when it gets overly excited at some other dog he sees on the street or something.

On this particular day, it's this pretty-looking fifth-year-ish boy in muggle jeans, cooing at Padfoot as he walks past. Padfoot strikes up much like an old-school alarm clock - barking all over the place and wagging his tail madly. He dashes up and into the boy's open arms, licks at his surprised, laughing face. Even as he's loving the cute attention, the boy looks a tad bewildered by the over-enthusiasm as he tries to shuffle forward, vaguely ruffling the top of Padfoot's head and not-so-subtly pushing him back toward the ground. He smiles timidly at James, who stares back expressionlessly.

He giggles nervously. "Look, good boy, I gotta go, fancy seeing you around again -"

Padfoot yips repeatedly, standing tall on his hind legs and wagging his tail the entire time the boy waves back at him, getting farther and farther away before disappearing around the next block.

James feels oddly left out. He picks up a loose cobblestone lying around and chucks it at Padfoot as a gentle reminder. Someone gasps nearby, possibly at the 'unethical treatment of an animal' or one of those things the muggle population is up to these days, but it does the trick. Padfoot finally comes down on all four legs and turns around, seeming to remember James's presence. Remembering that just because he's a _dog_ at the moment, doesn't mean he can go drool over other boys. Or girls for that matter.

Padfoot manages to forget all this in an instant, however. He runs off again once they arrive at the park and James settles onto the foot of a tree. James watches as a million - a _billion_ blades of grass soon cover the distance between them.

Padfoot seems to have spotted a friend: a fellow German Shepherd in a golden-brown color. Together, they run in circles and bark excitedly after each other. It leaves James feeling somewhat lonely again.

Soon enough, though, the two friends tire of their never-ending game and Padfoot comes trotting back toward James.

"Padfoot," James says softly.

Padfoot nuzzles his snout against James's neck, panting lightly. Does a little wiggle when James brings his arms around his middle and hugs him close, tucks his head further beneath his chin. He tries to focus on breathing in the strange but pleasant dog smell.

The blood-red sunset envelops them both in a tender warmth, and for a handful of magical, golden moments, James feels as close to Padfoot as ever - and with it, Sirius.

He can feel himself smiling again.

During the whole time at their next Order meeting, people flash unnecessary glances at the two of them. Most of them show worry, others show wariness, and still others show pity - it is these people that James wants to kick out of the room. If there's anything he hates, it's pity that's directed at him. Especially when there's literally _nothing _anyone should be feeling sorry for. He and Sirius are perfectly well together. It's not like they've _broken up _or anything - first of all, that's ridiculous, and anyone who knows them even slightly would know that, and second of all, they literally arrived at the meeting together and are sitting beside each other.

All that's missing is Sirius's arm around him. Sirius's hand on his thigh. Sirius's eyes on his eyes, each look holding a different meaning which James has always somehow been able to decipher: "I'm sure it's nothing to worry about, Dumbledore has a tendency to exaggerate -" or "Remus should never have cut his hair, look at him now -" or "What at all do you want for dinner?"

"What - wait - tomorrow_?_" James isn't sure he's heard right. He's been too distracted by the stares, for one.

"Yes." Dumbledore replies, sounding as if he was expecting James to be baffled. "I do apologize that everything has to be done so quickly, and at such short notice. But this is an urgent matter. It is about your safety, as I recall I have mentioned to you already."

"We understand, Albus," Sirius says quickly before James can say anything else.

"Thank you. I will be waiting for you at my office tomorrow, at one PM. The password will be _Chocolate Frog. _And please, do walk through the castle in your invisibility cloak."


	4. Surprise

4.

"Long day ahead, huh?" says Sirius.

They're in bed, having just woken up.

James yawns. "I suppose."

They're expected to completely master occlumency in a few hours. They'll go visit Dumbledore right afterwards, hopefully with something to prove.

"We've been getting pretty good at it, though, haven't we? I mean, neither of us failed even once when we practiced last."

They practice for an hour or two, and it's true. They've come a long way - they're practically occlumency pros by now. What's more, they've even started to figure out how wandless legilimency works, and with trial and error, they've gradually been getting the hang of it. You know, the shit that those x-ray eyes of Dumbledore's pull off. Basically, _Dumbledore shit. _They've actually come close to his level, and mind, they're still nineteen.

"Merlin's fucking _balls._ I did it again." James says, awestruck by another successful attempt. He looks down at his right hand just to make sure his wand _really _isn't there.

"Shit!" Sirius laughs.

By mid-morning, James realizes that they're focusing a lot more on honing their legilimency than occlumency. That's how much of a breeze the latter has become for them, and James is pretty goddamn happy. He and Sirius might finally get sent on a mission today - something that will _surely_ be more practical than learning how to protect your mind within the protection of your own fucking _house_.

"My turn," Sirius chirps. "Leave your mind open."

James does. He looks dead straight at Sirius, playing a little smirk on his lips. Sirius smirks back before plunging into his mind.

The warm amber lights of their living room flicker into a brighter, bleaker, paler color. James's sight adjusts to find out that they're back in the supermarket, the one they stopped by the day before. The cashier girl in the green, ridiculous polo shirt, her eyes practically hidden behind a monstrous amount of mascara. Staring right through James, at Sirius. James turns just in time to catch Sirius winking back, clearly amused by the attention.

_He's mine, _James thinks those words before he can stop himself. _Shit._

Sirius is pulling out, laughing. Eyes scrunched up and mouth wide open, entire body shaking. He definitely heard it, _both _the 'He's mine' and the 'Shit.'

James looks away sulkily, heat pooling into and out of his face.

"I don't know why that came up; I'd forgotten about the chick right after that happened, I swear."

"Aww," coos Sirius faux-sympathetically in between impolite guffaws. "You _clearly _haven't forgotten, Prongsy, otherwise why would it be the first thing on your mind when I tried to read it?"

"Fuck you," is all James can mutter out.

He heads for the kitchen to clear his head, but of course Sirius will not allow such a break.

A hand lands hard on his shoulder. "Whoa, where are you going? Are you done with practice? Are we done? Did I say we were?"

"Shut up, Sirius," James says flatly. "You and I both know that we don't really have to practice anymore. And I'm starving."

"Ohhh, I see," Sirius chuckles from right behind. It's loud in James's ear. "You're _confident."_

James is about to enter the kitchen when Sirius spins him around.

James's face is still slightly hot. "Yes, I'm confident, so what?"

Sirius lights up - with one of his clever ideas, presumably. "Well,_ I'm _not confident."

"You're _not?" _James scowls, skeptical.

"No," Sirius stands taller, grins wider, pulling down the hem of his shirt with renewed determination. "Come on, just do it on me one last time, yeah? If I can block you this final time, then we can eat, I promise."

James narrows his eyes.

"What are you waiting for? Come on, Prongs!" Sirius encourages happily. Gives James's shoulder a little shake.

_Funny, _James thinks, before going for it. He breaks down the walls of Sirius's mind one after another with ease. Sirius isn't holding up at all. _What is it? _James demands. _I know this is on purpose._

Sirius answers immediately. The lights go out and everything in the room vanishes except for two naked figures standing in the center. As if they're standing in a spotlight, only the light is glowing _off_ of their skin rather than from somewhere else. Something like smoke is swirling around the figures, obscuring certain parts and exposing others. It's erotic; fucking _surreal_. The hair are the tell-tale signs - the one with black, glossy hair is fucking the other from behind: the one with black, disorderly hair.

_Sirius_ is fucking _James._

Spit pools in James's mouth. Blood pools in his groin. His knees go weak.

At some point, Sirius throws his head back naughtily and moans out from a wide, fixed smile. His hands slide around Jame's sides and travel down his chest to his stomach to his cock, and James is mesmerized by the pronounced, sculpted veins of those beautiful _arms _as they begin to pump up and down in a steady rhythm. The imaginary James twists his head sideways and buries his head in Sirius's long, weirdly eroticized neck, gasping into it and rubbing his forehead against it. Sirius fucks him _slow,_ both of their flesh glowering brightly before fading with each spectacular hump.

Only when he finally pulls out does James realize that he probably spent a lot more time in Sirius's mind than he was conscious of.

"Sheesh," Sirius whistles, grinning. "You stayed in there for a _long _time." Pretending to be amazed, stretching out the '_long_' sarcastically. James looks down and notes that he's not the only one who's got a hard-on. His fingers ache to feel, to just _touch_ the bulge in Sirius's trousers, and it's suddenly a hell of a lot more appetizing than the idea of brunch.

James shakes his head dumbly. The image won't go out of his head. It's hopeless; he likely won't be able to sit down and have brunch unless he deals with his boner swiftly.

He's left with two options - either run straight to the bathroom where he can pull it off in private in about two seconds, or get off on Sirius - although it's not really an option to begin with.

Wordlessly, he brings his arms up and circles them tight around Sirius's neck. Sirius gets the message a split second before James has hopped onto him, latched against his torso with all four limbs. His arse is quickly supported with Sirius's clasped hands and he starts humping against him without further ado.

Sirius is no longer grinning. No trace of a laugh is left on his face. He's aroused, he's drooling, he's oh so evidently feeling fucking sexy and it makes James feel even sexier.

He ruts so hard into Sirius that Sirius even stumbles back a step or two. He seems to catch his balance soon after, though, and James is speedily carried across the living room toward their couch. He can hear Sirius panting by the time he's thrown onto it sloppily, greeted immediately by Sirius's body hovering right above his own.

Sirius's arms are shaking slightly as they support his weight from either side of James head - from exertion or from arousal, James doesn't know. One tug on the back of Sirius's head and Sirius's elbows give out. Suddenly their lips are touching and their tongues thrashing at each other_..._

James is still a bit dazed when they leave the house - he almost forgets his invisibility cloak. Sirius glares at him, too anxious to even reprimand.

Cloak in hand, James runs back down the stairs and rushes toward the door, where he finds Sirius tapping his foot.

"Don't worry, Paddy," James grins, stands on his toes for a second to catch Sirius's earlobe between his teeth.

Sirius shoves him off with an elbow, hitching his shoulder up to brush his ear annoyedly.

"Why would you think I'm _worried?_"

James shrugs, steps out of the door. Sirius joins him right after. With the cloak securely wrapped around the both of them, they find each other's fingers and apparate…

James gasps at the cold. Turns his head around, this way and that. The streets, the rooftops, the windows… the entire village is covered in a solid, cotton-white. For a few moments, he simply takes in his surroundings, mesmerized with the sheer beauty and overcome with the sudden flood of memories associated with the sight. _That's where Peter fell face-first into snow when a girl said hi to him_, he registers at the sight of some snow-covered shrubs over by Madam Puddifoot's. _That's where Sirius and I attacked Remus and Peter with a flock of snowballs,_ James recalls, looking over at where the narrow street bends in a slight angle.

"Hey, remember that?" James says out loud, pointing to it. He knows Sirius will understand what he's talking about.

Sirius looks at him, and at that moment they're on the exact same wavelength. He doesn't say anything - he doesn't have to - and James doesn't have to use legilimency to recognize fondness, longing, and sadness all sitting together in that gaze. James feels it, too. He holds onto Sirius's hand as he takes the first snow-crunching step toward Hogwarts castle.

_"Yes!"_ James may have said audibly as Dumbledore announces he will be setting them up for their first mission.

Dumbledore smiles. "You have done well, James, Sirius. I am convinced that you are more than ready. However—you must understand this is an extremely serious matter. As I'm sure you already know, you must not take this as something to treat carelessly, or to laugh about."

James blushes at the exquisite reference to his and Sirius's infamous disciplinary history.

"Yes, sir," they say together.

"Tomorrow, you will visit all major places in which many of Voldemort's followers frequently gather around to trade information. You will listen closely to any and all matters they talk of with extreme care, and take note of everything that you predict may be of any value. In the unfortunate circumstance of a capture, you must at once notify me or a trusted Order member with a patronus. You must not let any of the Death Eaters draw any piece of information out of you—this is where occlumency will come in useful. Is everything clear?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, _Albus,"_ Dumbledore chortles.

Since the Hogwarts grounds are out of bounds for apparition, they happily walk through each deserted corridor and climb down each staircase on their way back to the entrance hall, excitedly discussing all the creative tactics they could potentially use on their missions starting from the next day. Occasionally, they shake off the invisibility cloak to reveal themselves only to greet those they are delighted to see: the Fat Lady, Sir Cadogan, Nearly Headless Nick… the OG. They're all flipping amazed (Nick does a flip in the air, literally) to find their baby pranksters having grown into somewhat 'mature' people fighting for a cause, and not anymore for attention - well, not _really_. They do a little catching up with each other - mainly, James and Sirius fill them in with recent events in their own lives (paintings and ghosts, it seems, have somewhat mundane lives).

They're climbing down one of those mid-air staircases in the portrait gallery when the steps beneath them groan and start shifting. James wobbles a bit, having lost his instinct to find his footing immediately after a staircase starts moving. Sirius doesn't only catch him mid-fall: he guffaws rudely for a second or two before he pushes James against the banister and kisses him, and continues to kiss him roughly even after the stairs have long since settled. Sirius is so forceful, grabbing a handful of his robes by his chest and everything, that it's all James can do not to topple backwards over the railing and fall a solid sixty feet to the bottom. He stands on his tip-toes to match Sirius's height and responds as much as he can with equal passion, snatching strands of Sirius's hair to keep his balance. Sirius groans into the kiss.

They're interrupted by Peeves, who shouts and zooms vertically up the Portrait Gallery with four basketfulls of pears swinging from his arms—Merlin knows for what reason. Sirius and James are forced to duck when he whizzes past particularly close. They don't call out to him—the poltergeist is infamous for having his tongue slip very easily—but James finds it pretty damn hard to smother his laughter against Sirius's chest. He just feels so happy, so _pure_ in this goddamn school, and he's sure Sirius is feeling the same judging by the way he was kissing James only a second ago. The way they used to kiss and make out all the time, back when things weren't so complicated, back in the good old days…

The bell rings and the kids rush out of their classrooms at once. James and Sirius only barely make it outside of the castle without bumping into anyone_. _Before they know it, they've apparated back to their rainy, faceless London suburb.

To be honest, James had been kind of expecting their first mission to be something rather more—_exciting—_than spying on random Death Eaters. After all, spying is something he's been doing with the Marauder folks since they ever knew each other. Towards the end of their Hogwarts careers, spying has become such a mundane practice for them that James found himself constantly interfering with Snape's next foreseeable meetings with Lily as if it was his second nature: Scattering Snape's face with acne so he couldn't show up in front of Lily, putting Snape in detention for something he didn't do, etcetera.) Looking back, he can sort of admit all of it was a little mean. But after all, who can you blame? Snape was a mean, deranged bloody idiot, end of story.

Anyway, you see this kind of thing wasn't really what James had been hoping to be able to do. Spying didn't need authorization by Dumbledore—he already spies everywhere, every chance he gets, and so does Sirius. He would have continued to do it even if weren't part of the Order's goddamn 'mission.'

"Ready?" Sirius says, as he double-checks his pocket for his wand.

James notices that Sirius isn't too eager, either. He might be a little _bored,_ in fact.

James sighs. "Uh-huh." He flings the edges of his invisibility cloak around themselves before they apparate together.

"Shit," Sirius mumbles audibly the moment they arrive at Knockturn.

James follows his line of sight to recognize a sturdy little guy a little way away—a little younger than the two of them, not to mention awfully familiar.

"Reg,"Sirius breathes.

"What is he doing here?" James says anxiously.

Sirius ignores him; just yanks at James's arm, itching to get closer. They soon fall into stride a couple steps behind Regulus, who's currently walking by himself. He's looking straight ahead, his posture rigid, determined, with a little bundle of nerves somewhere in there.

He halts in front of the doorstep leading to a neat-looking place—sleek, black exterior, complete with a classy "open" sign—and walks in after having finished what looked like a personal ritual for calming down. James and Sirius follow him in quickly before the door slides shut.

Inside is a bar. It seems particularly dark after having stepped in from broad daylight. Oil lamps hanging low from the ceiling on heavy chains, the walls and furniture smooth, cold basalt surfaces, all bourgeois. A handful of men and women in suits sit scattered around the small interior, some in pairs and little groups.

James arches his eyebrows at Sirius—he didn't know such a place existed so close to Diagon. Sirius ignores him yet again.

He tugs painfully on James's arm and begins moving toward where Regulus has already calmly taken a seat with a glass of dark-red wine in hand: a high stool at a round table for two. _For two? _So he is meeting someone.

Regulus does his best to hide it but James still catches him gulping. He's reaching toward his collar and adjusting his tie to limited success. His fingers may or may not be shaking.

James sees a nearby table with two empty stools close together—close enough for the cloak to hide them both while they sit and wait—and he tugs on Sirius's sleeve to get his attention. Sirius still seems to be totally oblivious to his boyfriend. He stands rooted to the spot, gaze fixed on Regulus's anxious figure from an arm's reach to the side. James feels antsy. The cloak can hide their appearances, but it can't hide anything else—a drift of strange odor, or a flurry of strange air can easily reveal them. But experience has taught him that he isn't supposed to force anything on Sirius when he's in this kind of state.

The doorbell tingles. James looks just in time to see an impressive woman walk in. She's got majestically curly black hair cascading down her shoulders to her rather impressive breasts. _Pretty hot, _James notes, _except around the eyes—_her eyes look sort of mean. In fact, it's those eyes that finally remind James of a particular page in the _Prophet _from some days ago: _Devoted Death Eater Bellatrix Black, Daughter of Cygnus Black III and Druella Black, officially engaged to fellow Death Eater and pure-blood Rodolphus Lestrange._

Indeed, her eyes are _very_ mean.

"Oh, Reg, my baby!" Her voice sickly sweet and soprano as she strides over to Regulus, who's stood up by now. Regulus smiles thinly, accepting her kisses on both cheeks.

"Bella," he says smoothly, his voice not giving away any of his nerves. "What would you like to drink, hmm, my gorgeous love?"

James looks at Sirius—at a good timing, too—because Sirius is seconds from tearing off the cloak and doing something that would make things go in a horrible direction. James tugs on his sleeve again, and this time, Sirius looks back at him.

For a moment, he can't move. He hasn't seen Sirius like this, ever. It's not anger, it's not remorse, it's something close to _horror_. James has to keep himself in check so he won't stumble a few steps backward at just the stunning intensity of it. In a moment he realizes that it's not directed at _James_ himself; it's rather at the situation, his recent discovery that his very own brother is in an intimate relationship with the most dangerous person alive—perhaps even more so than the Dark Lord himself.

_Come on, Si, let's leave this place._

* * *

(Thanks for reading. I cut a fair bit out of this chapter because of a detailed sex scene that would infringe on policies. To view the original chapter in full, feel free to go on AO3! )


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